Prologue: Welcome to my World
Summary New to Nairu, Darraigh arrived in the Poor Quarter, gravitating naturally towards the slums of the city. He discovered something disturbing. A mysterious pox was inflicting quite a number of people in the Poor Quarter, and as he investigated further, he sensed that the pox-afflicted were geographically localised. Visiting those sites, he saw that a well was at the centre of each. Knowing he could no longer resolve this alone, he headed for the Academy of The Word, having been informed that this was a place of knowledge (but a lot more friendly than the University). Meanwhile, at the Academy of the Word, Aiden had been given the onerous task of giving an Orientation lecture to a bunch of fresh-faced pupils. After the lecture, ignoring the greetings of a couple of annoying students, Aiden met Madame Marja, the Headmistress of the Academy. After a dangerously sarcastic exchange, she told him there was a man waiting in his office. When he entered he found Darraigh sitting in his chair. This of course did not start the conversation off well. But after a whole heap of sass back and forth, Darraigh hooked Aiden in with his tale of poxy wells. Aiden fetched an old thesis from a bookshelf written by centaur P.G. Grubby-Plank on the subject of Nairu's magical wells. Being that Nairu is a floating city, the centaur hypothesised that the water for the wells was drawn magically from sources of water around the area, using some kind of portal magic not quite understood anymore. Chasing up urban legends along the lines of, "I knew a guy who knew a guy who said a coin he threw in the lake came back up in the well", the centaur conducted experiments and was able to establish rough positions for the sources of each well in the city. Most wells take from the same source in groups of three, so as to not draw too much water from one source, though it seems as if the Ancients built different wells at different times, so the groups of three cannot be guaranteed to be geographically close. Feeling close to the answer, Aiden asked Darraigh to name the three wells infected, but with his lack of knowledge of the city, Darraigh was not able to point the three wells out, so Aiden asked him to return to the sites and bring back the streetnames. After Darraigh left Aiden's office, Cassander entered, managing to sit in Aiden's chair while he wasn't looking. This rich and well-known playboy-type sassed Aiden and was given equal sass back. They spoke of donations to the Academy, and of the investigation of the wells. Cassander was most interested to hear that Aiden had sent Darraigh off on his own to a rather dangerous part of town. Later, Darraigh was reaching the end of his search after finding out the name of the third well, when a group of three thugs blocked his path. Quick thinking, he whacked one around the head with his bag of rocks and ran. But another two blocked his path. He ran onto the roof of the building next to him and the chase continued up there. Finally, when he was cornered by the men, Catman arrived, shooting an arrow to the knee of one, and taking out the rest, until the last guy ran screaming. Catman handed Darraigh a roll of parchment, saying the names he needed were on there. After a little bit of extra sass to tie things up, the scene ended. Places Visited The Poor Quarter The Academy of the Word The Office of Aiden Phillips NPCs encountered Madame Marja A poxy peasant woman in the Poor Quarter 5 thugs in the Poor Quarter Over-enthusiastic half-elf student Over-enthusiastic kender student Objects encountered The Life-waters of Nairu, and the Origins of, by P.G. Grubby-Plank